Analyzation Of Compensation Liability Towards Environmental Pollution In Conocophillips

In June2011, a severe oil spill occurred from oil platform B and C inPenglai19-3Oil Filed. Many fish men and seafood raisers suffered badlyform this tragedy, and so was the ocean itself. Fish men and seafood raisersfrom Hebei and Shandong raised suits against ConocoPhillips China.However, they were about to face difficulties coming from everywhere. Forthe plaintiffs, the civil responsibilities caused by this oil spill mostlyconcerned about compensation liability raised from ocean oil pollution.Current laws, such as Tort Law, Environment Law as well as MarineEnvironment Protection Law have set special requirements for those whoare responsible for ocean oil pollution. Nevertheless, the identification ofresponsible part is not clear enough and neither is that of the liabilitypattern. As to the responsible party, articles tend to use the word polluter,operator and contractor etc, while these words possessing differentconnotations. Responsible party in ocean oil pollution differs from that ingeneral environmental pollution, which needs to be clarified throughanalyzing related articles. With the concept of constitutive requirements,even though the regular principle in pollution is well-known as theprinciple of liability without fault, yet the law has failed to regulate theinfluence which brought to liability by fault, which requires furtheranalyzation about judicial precedents. This article, based on existingresearch result, aims at clarifying as well as analyzing ocean oil pollution responsibility and compensation liability, combined with facts in this oilspill.This article is divided into three main parts: first is about theresponsible party, focusing on the identification about operator andcontractor and the different parts they played during the oil spill accident,which would lead us to the possible liability taken by ConocoPhillips Chinaand China National Offshore Oil Corporation. Second part mainlydiscusses the constitution of liability, the main part of which is the chain ofcausation and what is it like when comes to practice. The last but not least,the property plaintiffs that have the due right to sue and the extent as wellas the pattern of compensation towards ocean oil spill pollution.